ELECTION AUTOPSY 2008

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a WINNAH!!!

Latest numbers I have:

Total Votes Cast: Approx. 121,000,000

Obama Votes: 64,000,000

McCain Votes: 56,000,000

Obama Wins By 8,000,000, counting Missouri as a probable McCain win.

As you can see, not nearly a landslide, but more than enough to make Barack Obama our next president. The numbers this time, in fact, were almost identical to the numbers in 2004, when President Bush won re-election to his second term. John McCain tightened up the race a lot in the final week, but just couldn't close the gap and pull ahead of Obama. Still, there was no "inevitability" to Obama's victory; it was very close in some of the battleground states. The last I heard, Obama won the race for Ohio, always a key state, by only one percentage point. But it was enough. President-Elect Obama will be inaugurated on Jan. 20th, and for the first time in 17 years, a Bush presidency won't be followed by a Clinton one.

I was a solid McCain supporter, but I'm not a sore loser, as the Democrats have been for the past eight years. I congratulate Senator Obama on his victory and sincerely wish him well. I will pray for him, as I have for every president, and hope God will guide him onto the right path for America. Our future as a nation depends on that. We will see how our new leader does, as time moves on.

In the meantime, for closure, I will dissect this long, long election cycle and offer up my "autopsy," or analysis, whatever you want to call it.

What Won It

In a nutshell, consistency did more to win this election for Obama than anything else. Yes, I know -- the constant chanting of "change, change, change" and "yes we can" got very old, and even maddening at times, but Obama's campaign stayed on track the whole way. His message, although I didn't like it at all, never swayed off track one bit. From the beginning, even during the primaries, it became apparent that this election, from the Democratic point of view, was going to be a referendum on the policies of President Bush. At times it seemed that Obama was running more against Bush than against his actual opponents, prompting John McCain to lash out at him in one debate, telling him that if he wanted to run against President Bush, he should have ran four years ago. But it worked; that message stayed consistent throughout and with the election of Barack Obama we now have a complete departure from the so-called "Bush Doctrine." I have many doubts about the wisdom of at least parts of that (the national security part of it, especially), but it won this election for the Democrats.

What Lost It

McCain's inconsistency and his refusal to take on Obama and expose his policies. He finally did go on the offensive, in the final week or two, but it was too little, too late by then. Sarah Palin was on offense from the outset, was muzzled for awhile, then apparently broke free from her handlers and became herself again, but she couldn't do it all alone and she got little help from McCain until the end. Again, too little, too late.

I got the distinct impression that McCain's refusal to take the fight to Obama most likely came out of fear of having the "race" card played on him and being labeled as a racist by the media, who played the role of Obama's attack dogs from the outset of the campaign. Obama could be comfortable as "No-Drama-Obama," with the media doing all his dirty work. McCain didn't have that luxury and he was the one who had to do the fighting. He didn't start doing it soon enough. McCain stayed on defense too long and let Obama run out the clock on him. You can't win a ball game if you stay on defense all the time. You gotta outscore your opponent. That's what McCain failed to do.

A Crucial Blunder

The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage debacle and the economic fallout that resulted couldn't have come at a better time for the Democrats, who always benefit from an economic downturn, historically. McCain fumbled the ball badly when the crunch hit, suspending his campaign and rushing back to Washington, while Obama remained calm, vowing that the debate would go on and that there was no reason to rush. McCain then got trapped into voting for a quick-relief bailout bill that was so pork-laden that it almost oinked. This, after he'd vowed to end congressional earmarks completely. That, quite frankly, left McCain looking like a fool, and Obama looking much more presidential. Touchdown, Obama. McCain came off as way too panicky -- never a good quality in a president. McCain's campaign was tied, or leading Obama's before that happened. McCain lost that lead and never recovered it. End of story.

Mythbusters 101

Obama's "Huge" Youth Vote: Didn't happen, as usual. Voters aged 18-29 in 2004 equalled 11 percent. Voters in same age group in 2008 equalled 11 percent. No gain. Same ol' same ol'. Voters in that age group are still more interested in where the next party is, as they always are. They went to the Obama rallies because it was the latest "cool" thing to do. But no more of them showed up at the polls than ever do.

Sarah Palin Was A Drag On The McCain Campaign: Not so. Sorry, if you think that, but you're not thinking, if you do. Once Sarah was able to become Sarah again, she wooed the conservative base of the Republican Party very effectively. She took on Obama's policies in McCain's absence on that subject, but of course, one voice is never as effective as the collective shouts of the media are. Sarah Palin, every conservative's "sweetheart," is the biggest reason that the campaign was able to stay as close to Obama as it did. She was one of the greatest assets, not a drag at all. She gained some long yardage, but McCain kept fumbling the ball. It was his election to lose, not Sarah's, and he did just that.

Ex-Hillary Voters Will Flock To McCain. Here's one I bought into myself, lock, stock and barrel. It didn't happen. So sue me. McCain wound up with very few disgruntled Hillary voters at all -- maybe three percent, at best. The vast majority of them held their noses and voted for Obama.

America Is A Racist Country. The media, Revs. Jackson, Sharpton, and Rev. Wrong are going to have a hard time making that allegation stick from now on. 60% of Obama's support came from white voters and Hispanics. When you can sweep a state like Iowa, which is 93% white, there's little racism involved. You should be proud of your country all the time now, Michelle Obama. No more excuses.

The Biggest Loser

The national news media is the biggest loser in this campaign, due to their rampant, undisguised love affair with Obama from Day One. I don't have to tell you that when any organization becomes this biased, they render themselves completely useless. That's just what the media has done, with most people.

I agree completely with commentator Sean Hannity: 2008 is the year that journalism officially died in America. Our news media is a total disgrace; it has become nothing more than a propaganda outlet for the left. There are a few conservative and middle-of-the-road newspapers still around, and Fox News is still somewhat more balanced and fairer than the Big Four, but that's about it. If you want to get all the facts and both sides of an issue, you're forced to turn to internet sources most of the time. Traditional network and print news has been slowly dying for the past several years, and this year put another king-sized nail in their coffin. R.I.P.

What Lies Ahead

It don't look good, I'll tell you that, but this is a subject for a future entry, all to itself. I need some time to come down from my post-election "hangover" and gather my thoughts. Here's a little hint, to tide you over until then: Beware of Congress, as much or more as Obama!!! More to come, later on.

ECONOMICS 101 -- BASIC ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

As a handy-dandy little guide to economics, I'n presenting this simplified description of the basic socio-economic systems that exist in today's world. Hopefully, after studying this material, readers will better understand what we're up against and what we must avoid.

CAPITALISM: You own 20 cows. You milk your cows every day and process the best-quality milk that you can, always striving to be the best at what you do. Your dairy business begins to thrive and over the next few years, you are able to buy up all your competition's cattle. You now own 500 cows and have a milk monopoly. You become wealthy and then you sell your dairy business for millions of dollars more and retire while you're in your 40's.

SOCIALISM: You own 20 cows. The government taxes your profits and redistributes the money to unproductive people. You can't buy any more cattle and expand your business. Jobs are lost.You're forced to sell off some of your cows in order to stay afloat. This continues until you can no longer compete in the marketplace, then the government seeks to move in and take over your dairy when you're almost bankrupt. Bureaucracy then takes over the operation of your dairy (see below).

BUREAUCRACY: The government takes over your dairy business. It spills half of the mik, then lets the other half spoil. Nobody has any milk.

COMMUNISM: You own 20 cows. The government confiscates all of them. You own nothing. Everything becomes government property, assigned to people according to their importance to the state. You are forced to work, under threat of imprisonment, and are paid not in money, but with "credits" you can redeem for necessities in a government-run store. The amount of credits you get again depends on your value to the state. If you complain or protest, you are "re-educated," or imprisoned. Hard-line dissidents tend to disappear forever. You are essentially a slave, owned by the state.

NAZI/FASCISM: You own 20 cows. The government's Secret Police shows up in the middle of the night, steals all your cattle, executes you, then throws your family in a concentration camp. Everyone the government considers undesirable is imprisoned and forced to do hard labor. They are true slave, paid nothing; given only enough food and water to keep them barely alive. Only a favored few are allowed to profit, under strict government control. Basically Communism on steroids.

Now, which system would YOU rather live under?? Our capitalist/free market system, or one of the others?

Please VOTE on Nov. 4th. IT MATTERS MORE THAN EVER IN THIS ELECTION!!!

A DEMOCRATIC "LOCK?" DON'T BELIEVE IT!

In a Barack Obama speech I heard part of the other night, the Democratic candidate sounded a lot as if he were giving his acceptance speech, after the election. In their relentless polls, taken once every hour, it seems, the Obama-loving national news media is predicting a landslide of mammoth proportions. "It's all over," they seem to be saying. "Obama has the presidency all locked up."

Really? Not so fast, Democrats. There's one tiny little thing that you're overlooking here; the election hasn't taken place yet! Yes, the election. You know -- that little "formality" we have every four years, where the people go to the polling stations and actually vote for the candidate of their choice. That election. Remember now? Your candidate actually has to win that election, by amassing enough electoral votes among all the states to put him in the White House for the next four years. That hasn't happened yet, and it's not over until it does. Don't get ahead of yourselves and don't get too cocky and overconfident. That's when you usually lose.

The people of America will decide who our next president will be, on Tuesday, Nov. 5th. The pollsters don't get to decide and the media doesn't get to decide. The people do. That's us -- me and you, and millions more like us, all across this nation. So, in spite of all the overconfident boasting and all the Democrat-favoring polls that the media concocts, it will all come down to that, just like it always does. We will decide this thing for ourselves. ACORN and similar liberal groups can register dead people and 7-year-old children to vote, and they can register all the homeless people, imprisoned felons, and illegal aliens that they want to; that sort of thing goes on in almost every election, but it seldom, if ever, works at all. The fraud gets discovered and eradicated and the honest people's votes are what carries the day for the winner.

And who do I think will win this thing? I'm hoping, of course, that John McCain will come out on top, when it's all over, and things appear to be sliding in his direction now, from what I've seen and heard in the past week. The national polls (the ones you can trust, that is), have tightened up dramatically. The Democrats appear to be in their "frantic campaigning mode," not a good indicator of the "lock" they claim to have. And I heard from reliable sources that the Dems' own internal polls (the ones we never see) indicate that they're losing in most of the battleground states. So things are not what the Democrats and their media allies would have you believe.

And one thing to remember about McCain -- he's as strong a finisher as anyone I've ever seen; he winds things up with a bang. That's his style. He doesn't give up and he never quits; that's the old warrior spirit in him. That's what got him through five years of captivity and torture in the Hanoi Hilton prison. In the primaries, his campaign was given up as practically dead, early on. But he battled relentlessly back and won. The proof of that is the position that he holds right now. Don't ever count John McCain out of it. That would be a serious mistake.

One lesson I learned, back in the days when I used to engage in a little sports betting, was that there's simply no such thing as a "lock." Oh, you might be fooled into thinking that you have one. A strong, powerful, nationally-ranked team plays a little team that nobody knows anything about and it looks like the mismatch of the century; that little nothing team is about to be booted clean out of the stadium. It looked that way in January of 1986, at the Sugar Bowl, when the #2-ranked Miami Hurricanes played a little underdog team from Tennessee --our own Volunteers, who weren't even ranked in the Top 25 nationally. They got to that bowl because it always hosted the Southeastern Conference champion and we'd had a great year in our conference.

Miami's players were all cocky and overconfident, thinking they could just "show up and win" and the sports gurus all thought the same thing. But there was a game they had to get through first. The 'Canes lost miserably to the Volunteers that New Year's evening -- 35-7. We took them apart on the field, then spit them out. It was a thing of beauty, if you were a Vol fan. The Hurricanes went back to Coral Gables totally spent, with their pride destroyed and their heads hung low. The Hurricanes learned, just as I did in my betting days, that on any given day you can play a lousy game and lose your shirt.

There's no such thing as a lock, in politics, as in sports. It'll pay to remember that, the next time you hear the Democrats saying that they have one in this election.

REASONS TO LOVE SARAH PALIN

Hey--I've HAD IT with all the media trashing of Gov. Sarah Palin!! Enough is enough!! The national press and broadcast media have been treating this lady far worse than they would ever think of treating the most slovenly streetwalker in the bowery and it's time it came to a halt. How do you think they'd react if a conservative blogger, or reporter, trash-talked Hillary Clinton, or Michelle Obama the way they're doing Gov. Palin? We'd never hear the end of it. The offender would practically be drawn and quartered in the public arena, if they dared to treat a liberal Democratic woman like this. So, it's high time that this two-faced trashing spree ended; such double standards just plain suck -- they always have, and they always will. Enough of this witless rhetoric.



I'm going to give you some reasons why this conservative writer holds Gov. Palin in such high esteem.

First, I don't love her for her looks. Oh, yes, I've noticed that she's a very attractive young woman. I'm a normal man, after all. Undoubtedly, there are some men out there who will vote for the ticket, based on her beauty alone. Many voters do base their votes on such intangibles as looks, true enough. There are women who list their attraction to Sen. Obama on his looks, either partly or completely. And some women will vote for the McCain/Palin ticket because she's a woman; they'll vote for any woman, of any party, of any ideology, simply because she is female. And undoubtedly, some African-Americans will vote for Sen. Obama based on his skin color alone. Those sort of things always happen -- every election. It's almost proverbial. Those are all the wrong reasons to vote for anyone, in my opinion, and it's potentially dangerous, but it happens every election cycle, nonetheless.

My attraction to Gov. Palin is an ideological one. I love her conservatism, her obvious strength of character, and her reform-oriented mind. Mitt Romney said, back in the primaries, that "Washington is broken." If anyone in this entire campaign ever made a truer statement, I don't know who that would be. Because Washington is broken. Very broken. It needs fixing ASAP, and from what I've seen out of Sarah Palin, she might just be the right one to fix it. She certainly has the track record to back her up. As Alaska's governor, she took on the old-time, well-rooted "Old Boy's Network" in the state and turned it on its ear. She made a lot of friends, and some enemies as well. She stepped on some toes. But that's what it takes, to do the job that needs to be done. And she proved to be tough enough to do the job. They started calling her "Sarah Barracuda" in Alaska. She left to join McCain as his running mate holding a nearly 80% approval rating among her constituents. No small feat, for any politician, on any level of government. Damned impressive, if you ask me. The lady's no slouch.

However, there's another level to Sarah Palin, and that's where I really connect with her the most. I adore that "hockey mom" side of her more than anything else. She's a real person and she's one of us. Middle-class background. She knows what it's like to work a real job for a living, unlike so many in government who have never really done so at all. She knows what it's like to live from payday to payday, balance a family budget, shop for necessities, nurture kids and work a job at the same time -- in short, she has lived most of her life just like we live ours. She's not out of touch at all, but most assuredly in touch with mainstream Americans. And that's something we desperately need in government nowadays -- a politician who knows how most regular people live, what they go through, what makes them happy, and what angers them. And now we have that in Sarah Palin. Thank you forever, John McCain, for introducing us to this fine lady! What a fantastic asset to any campaign!

Win or lose on Nov. 4th, Sarah Palin is going to be a force in national politics for some time to come. She's headed for rock star status, I believe (although as a friend of mine pointed out, she's far more of a class act than any rock star. And I agree with that.) My prayer for her is that she won't succumb to the "D.C. Sydrome," as so many others have done. Don't drink the water in Washington, Sarah -- there's something funny in it! And don't ever lose the qualities that people like myself love in you. Somehow, I don't think this woman ever will.